On The Road Again – Photo Day at The Lubee Bat Conservancy!

 

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  I had been looking forward to Photo Day at the Lubee Bat Conservancy all year.  Not only was it a chance to get out of the house, return to the Lubbe Bat Conservancy to hang out with some delightfully batty bats but also to get back into my photography hobby which has been put on the back burner for way too long!

  I purchased tickets almost as soon as they were available, and began making plans to return to Gainesville.  I enjoyed camping so much on our Orlando adventure, I made reservations at Ruth B. Kirby Gilchrist Blue Springs State Park.  Then it was just down to repairing some of my camping equipment and checking days off the calendar until it was time to hit the road!

  Due to some personal issues that came up, it was a toss up of whether or not I was actually going to go through with the trip!  Though Thursday afternoon I decided to kick the blues and get my butt in gear!  I made the meal preparations, went to the store and for once in a very long time actually had the car loaded by about 10pm!  Now it was down to a sleep and a wakeup!

  7am came early, and I was able to make it out the door and get on the road on time!  Man! This drive turned in to a slog!  For some reason even with a full night sleep, I had to fight myself to remain awake.  I was stopping at almost every rest area to keep from dozing off!  I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to reach the destination!  Fortunately I was able to reach a fellow traveling radio amateur on the 2 meter National Simplex Calling Frequency (146.520), and I was able to talk to him for the next hour, and the rest of the trip FLEW BY!  Reaching the campground, I checked in, had the site setup and napped a couple of hours until dinner.  Which consisted of a Texas Roadhouse copycat grilled Salmon Recipe then it was off to bed!  The bats await!

  Saturday dawned bright and early and we stayed on the cot until about 8, made coffee and we were off to the Lubee Bat Conservancy!  For those that have not had a chance to read the blog on our VIP tour when I first arrived in Florida, you can read it here.  From their website, “Lubee Bat Conservancy is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving bats and their habitats through conservation, education, and awareness, with a focus on children and community engagement.”  I was fortunate enough to attend a private VIP tour and also attend the Florida Bat Festival which they host annually.  Their annual photo day allows a limited number of guests to go into the bat enclosures for an opportunity to take close up photos without having to shoot through the wire mesh of those enclosures.  Which I found at the bat festival was almost impossible to get any good photos, unless you are REALLY good at manual focusing.

  I had joked in my original blog that the big gate and bigger red sign telling me to STOP!  Reminded me of the entrance to Jurassic Park!   I was able to a picture of this sigh this time.

  Here is Fang, Mao, Baxter, and Steroid Bob pulling up to the gate!  (A good photographer always has stand in props!

  We arrived about an hour early, and were given permission to walk around, just not to enter any of the buildings..   So out came the bats for some B roll photos!  Besides the ubiquitous Bat Barn which we saw in the previous blog, they really do have some quaintly designed buildings.  They said I couldn’t go in the buildings, they did not say I could not go in front of the buildings!  So I set up for a good picture in front of “The Office”, I was always being sent to the office! 

  I had seen this tree on my last 2 previous visits, and thought it would make a great backdrop for a Bat Portrait!  Here is Baxter looking stoic! 

  It really does show that I have put my photography aside, as this would have been a GREAT! opportunity to show a comparison between 35mm with the 16-35mm f2.8L and the 35mm f1.4 L IS prime. Or the different look in using a 50mm focal length and 35mm.  Oh well, looks like I just found an excuse to go back to the conservancy!

  Wow!  2 pages just for the plushies!  That isn’t what you are here for, you want to see the real bats! 

  We were allowed in to the enclosure, and it was time to get the 70-200 f4.0L IS on the camera.  Here are a couple of Flying Foxes playing.

And 2 adorable bats hanging by their own favorite plushie!  The staff call them Stink Bears and the bats use them to leave their scent on.  Sometimes the Stink Bears are taken to the other enclosures so the other bats can smell them and leave their own scent.  As a way of providing stimuli.

I was a bit frustrated with the 70-200 lens, I had more misses than hits, which I should not have with this lense.  It might be time to have it checked for focusing issues.

Here is a miss

And a hit!

The bats were excited to be fed a little early!  Two bats are squaring off, while another is taking advantage of the distraction to get the fruit kabob to himself “You guys just keep fighting…).  This photo was a good idea, but framed wrong.  Instead of trying to make sure I had the entire kabob in the picture, I should have gotten all of the bats.  It not only creates an awkward dead space below the bats heads, but cut off part of the main subjects.

  This would be a better picture frame wise, but the motion blur on the bats wing is now a bit distracting (This is where the 70-200 f2.8 IS would have come in handy.  The third bat is still chomping away!

  There we go!  Perfect photo!

As you can see, meal time is very important, even for bats.

Interesting fact, bats do not eat the pulp, or meat of the fruit, they smash against the roof of their mouths with their lounge, drinking the juice and spitting the pulp and seeds out, which the staff call “Bat Spat”.  Their noses are actually specially shaped so the juice runs between their nostrils, while hanging upside down.  My one question, is what is the purpose of the corn?  Since corn kernels contain very little juice. 

This photo was almost clear enough, where you can see the shape of the bat’s snout and nostrils and the natural channel where the fruit juices can run down, preventing it from getting in the bat’s eyes and fur.

I did manage to get one funny expression out of this guy!

I did not seem to get any good pictures of the bats swings stretches completely wide open.  Here is a good picture though showing a pats wing structure.  Bat’s are the only mammal capable of powered flight! Their wing structure differs quite a bit from birds in that instead of having just a singular wing bone, their wings are shaped similar to our hands, with 5 distict “finger bones”.  This allows for incredible flexibility in the shape of their wings, making them very agile aviators!

  Here is Steroid Bob getting in on the photo day action!

No! No! Really…. I was just making sure none of these humans were stealing their food!

I know it is getting time to wrap this up!  I did want to share one last thing, and that in addition to the Canon 5D MKIV and my collection of L glass. I also brought the venerable 7D and the $30 Holga lens, as I have mentioned in my other photography blogs.  Sometimes you also have to just have fun with the hobby, and the Holga has been a great way to do that!  In a way, I think I actually had a better hit / miss ration with this setup than I did with the more expensive lens.

I would like to send a special thanks to the staff at The Lubee Bat Conservancy, without whom not only would the bats no receive the world class care that they do, but I would not be able to share this great content with you.  They do an exceptional job of putting on events like this and the annual Florida Bat Festival and provide countless hours of education to our future generations.  One phrase that always stuck out at me when I worked at a marine park in High School, “You are always on stage!”, which has always been my motto when dealing with a customer, and Lubee exemplifies this in excellent public and customer service! 

Here is Hannah the Education Director making sure the bats have plenty of fruit and juice!

(Yeah – that is totally the radio amateur in me making sure the handy talkie did not get cropped out of the photo!)

It is well past time to wrap this up!  Please check out the Lubee Bat Conservancy Website for information regarding bats and the conservation of their habitats, VIP tours (Which I highly recommend if you will be in the Gainesville area.), special events like Photo Day, and of course the annual Florida Bat Festival! http://www.lubee.org

Please be sure to come back for more great content!